First Published Dec 31, 2021, 3:01 PM IST
2Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country on August 15, 021, just as the Taliban entered the Afghan capital, Kabul. He spoke to the media for the first time in five months about his decision to leave the country. He told reporters that he had made the decision to leave the country in just two minutes but did not know he was leaving the country until he took off. When the Taliban captured the country’s capital, there were reports that there was no information about the president. Two days later, it was confirmed that Ashraf Ghani had left the country.
He said the decision to leave the country was made in just two minutes when Taliban militants captured the country’s capital. But he added that he did not know he was leaving the country until he flew away.
In an interview with former UK Chief of Defense Staff Nick Carton on the BBC’s Radio 4 program “Today”, Guinea said he had no indication that the morning of August 15, the day the Islamists took control of the capital and the collapse of his own government, would be his last day in Afghanistan.
Just ten days after the start of the war, the Taliban conquered the Afghan provinces and entered Kabul. The Afghan army surrendered without stopping to defend the Taliban. The security of the cities was blown away when violent Taliban stormed the cities from the Afghan slums.
Ghani claimed that his national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, was “literally terrified.” “He didn’t give me more than two minutes.” He said his first suggestion was to fly by helicopter to the southeastern Ghost city.
But by the end of August, provincial capitals across the country had surrendered to lightning strikes by Taliban militants ahead of an international military withdrawal. Ghost City had already been captured by the Taliban.
The eastern city of Jalalabad, which borders Pakistan, is already under Taliban control. “I did not know where we were going at the time,” he said.
Since then, Ashraf Ghani has lived in the United Arab Emirates. The president’s flight from Afghanistan during the invasion was widely criticized. It was also alleged that Ashraf Ghani smuggled millions of dollars out of the country when he left the country.
This is Ashraf Ghani’s first interview with the media five months after leaving the country. He reiterated that his decision to leave the country was “the hardest thing”. “I had to sacrifice myself to save Kabul and expose the situation to the world. It was a violent coup and not a political pact,” Gani said.
He said he could not change the end result. As the country faces one of the worst humanitarian crises in history, the Taliban have seen their new regime established. “Unfortunately I painted everything black,” he said.
“It’s an American problem. It’s not an Afghan problem.” “My life job was ruined. My values were trampled on and they sacrificed me,” he said. After the president fled, Amrullah Saleh, the most prominent vice president in the Afghan cabinet, entered his safe haven in Panchsheer and promoted himself as the new president of Afghanistan. However, with the help of Pakistani airstrikes, Taliban militants later captured the Panchsheer Valley.
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